Free You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This by Karenna Colcroft Page A

home, he should have the first shower. On the other hand, she was his guest, and hosts should give way to guests. Awkward. This is why I shouldn’t spend the night.
     I should just go home and shower there. Instead of saying that to Stefan, she replied, “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
    He went to the bureau and took out an oversized T-shirt, which he handed to her. “Put this on if you get cold.”
    With a smile, she pulled on the T-shirt and stood. The shirt reached her upper thighs, covering everything that needed to be covered. His eyes lit up. “You look really hot in my shirt. If I had any strength left, I’d do something about that.”
    “I thought you had plenty of stamina,” she teased.
    “Watch how you challenge me, or I’ll show you how much I have.” He swatted her ass, then hugged her. “Be here when I’m finished my shower, please? I want to talk to you about something. Nothing too serious, just a question I had.”
    Her gut clenched. She hated any type of “we need to talk” discussions. “I’ll be here.”
    “Thank you.”
    He left the room and she wandered out to the living room, where Gorilla greeted her. Scratching the dog behind his ears, Erin stood in front of Stefan’s award wall. Some of the photographs, she saw now, included a young girl who looked slightly like Stefan. His sister, no doubt. Over the course of the pictures, she looked thinner, and some of them showed her with a colorful bandanna over her head, a different one in each photo. In every single picture in which she appeared, she stood by Stefan’s side, smiling proudly at him.
    Erin hadn’t saved any pictures from her competitions with Scott. Some of them had ended up in his apartment, and she didn’t know what had happened to them after his death. His mother had offered her a photo from their most recent event, and Erin had refused it. She hadn’t wanted his face staring down at her every day.
    Some of their awards had wound up in her possession. She hadn’t known where to display them, and after she lost Scott, in the initial overwhelming rush of grief, she’d tried to rid herself of everything that reminded her of him. Merit had salvaged the awards and certificates before she’d thrown them away. She didn’t know where he’d put them.
    The shower shut off, and after a moment Stefan entered the room wearing only a towel. She eyed his bare chest and forced a smile, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts of Scott. “Is that your wardrobe for the evening?”
    “I’m going to put on clothes,” he replied. “Just wanted to let you know the shower’s yours. Take your time.” He grinned. “And feel free to put that T-shirt back on afterward instead of your clothes. I think it looks much better on you.”
    “Dream on,” she said. On her way to the bathroom, she detoured into the bedroom to gather her clothes. Wearing Stefan’s T-shirt, like spending the night, seemed much too intimate for two people who’d only decided to date two nights earlier.
    She didn’t want that much closeness quite yet.
    When Erin left the shower, clothed again in the outfit she’d worn to class, she found Stefan on the couch with Gorilla lying beside him. “Guess I know my place here,” Erin joked. She sat in the armchair.
    “Not quite.” Stefan pushed Gorilla off the couch and patted the cushion, using his knee to block the dog from jumping back up. “Come over here, Erin. I want to ask you about something, and I think we need to figure out where we are.”
    “We’re in your living room.” She really, really didn’t want to have this conversation. They’d only been “more than colleagues” for a couple days. It was far too soon to have a relationship discussion.
    “Erin, please.” He held out his hand, and she took it and sat beside him. “You don’t want to stay the night, do you?”
    “I’m used to my own bed.” She sighed. “Honestly, when I’ve had a boyfriend, I’ve almost never ‘slept over.’”